Washington, D.C. attorney Mark Schamel has been offering some informal counsel to the friends of Rev. Lee Ryan, former pastor of St. Edmund Catholic Church in Watseka.

He makes it clear, though, that he can offer little optimism to the group hoping to see their 79-year-old priest cleared of sexual allegations, dating from the mid-1970s.

Schamel, a 15-year veteran defense lawyer, represents the Rev. Kevin McBrian, the other priest accused by a Florida man, now 52, who reported that his former teachers -- Ryan, at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, and McBrian, at Joliet Catholic High School -- sexually abused him...